Naso: Vows of Holiness

The passage of the Nazir contains one of the most meaningful, profound and obscure ideas of the Torah. First the story in brief: A Nazir is someone who vows to abstain from all ritual impurity, cutting their hair and drinking alcohol for a specified period. Who would take such a vow?

This is what the Torah says about a Nazir: "All the days of his separation, he is kodesh, holy, to Hashem." 6:8

In other words, his abstinence makes him a holy vessel. A Nazir is a person who yearns to be close with God. Their vow-taking is a symbol of a deep desire to rid themselves of earthly pleasures so they can be more intent on God’s Will, not theirs. They want to be mentally focused, undistracted from ungodly desires.

The exact wording of the Torah states, "when a person wants to separate themselves…" Ibn Ezra reveals the inner meaning of the word separate, yaflee. He tells us that it indicates he, the Nazir, is about to do something wonderful.

Two of the three things that a Nazir vows to not touch are earthly pleasures. Who does not want to get a haircut? It makes us feel good, look good and is a bit like a mini-spa. On the other side, remember when Judaism demands that we refrain from a hair cut? We do not trim hair when in mourning. That is the clearest indication that a haircut is viewed as a pleasurable activity that distracts us from the more immediate pain.

What about alcohol? With the exception of addiction, alcohol is associated with goodness and celebration. In our faith we bless Shabbat with alcohol. Think of it: the Kiddush ends with the words mikadesh HaShabbat, "Who makes holy the Shabbat." We say this berakha over wine. Purim is also a celebration with spirits. A Nazir is someone who wants to deny themselves the pleasure of drinking.

What about contact with impurity? How is this related? Torah says that if a Nazir becomes impure he must bring two sacrifices, an asham and a hatat. The first sacrifice is because he broke his vow. The reason for the second sacrifice is less clear. We are told the Nazir brings this animal for his "soul." His soul has become somehow tainted. How?

Rashi suggests the Nazir brings this sacrifice because once he has touched the dead body he needs to begin the process of his vow from the beginning. In other words, if the Nazir took a vow to not cut his hair, drink wine, and remain pure for say, one year, and then comes into contact with the dead, the year starts from day one. Rashi declares that this is reason he brings a second sacrifice….there is another span of time when he will have to deny himself pleasure. Yet, why does the Torah consider the Nazir to be tainted?

The brilliant Rambam writes that the reason the Nazir must bring two offerings is because God does not want us to deny ourselves His gifts, our pleasures. The Holy One surely wants us to deny things which are forbidden but not things that are allowed! In fact, we are directed to use pleasures like alcohol for the sake of God---which is exactly what we do each Friday night! The taint of the Nazir is that the time he needs to refrain from enjoying the bounty of God for a longer stretch of time.

What does this all mean to us?
1. The Holy One, blessed be He, created a universe for our pleasure. Each gift has a use a vehicle back to our Maker.
2. There may be times when we desire to place personal restrictions on our self in order to rid ourselves of spiritual toxins. Torah allows for this…for a limited period.
3. Vows taken are holy. They must not be broken or made on a whim.
4. Someone who makes a personal vow for the sake of God becomes a holy vessel. Desire for devekute, proximity to the Lord, is a holy endeavor.



Haftarah Insight:
The power of words is paramount in Judaism. Manoah refuses to believe his wife. Why does he not trust her? Later when convinced that the vision really happened and the angel actually appeared, Manoah and his wife swear that their child-to-be-born will be a Nazirite. He will become the warrior feared by the Philistines, Samson. Yet, because the young Samson abandoned the vows his parents took for him he is shorn of his strength.
A Matter of Law:
Several important ideas emerge from this parasha. One of them is the word, "Amen". Meaning -faith - when a person utters the word "Amen" it is so powerful that it is equivalent to saying the intial statement. For example, said after a blessing, "Amen" is the same as having said the blessing. Since Judaism places great importance on words we must be circumspect before responding "Amen" to any statement.

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D'var Aher

We need a hero.

We are always looking for them.  

How many movies have you seen lately that are about superheroes with great powers that come to save the earth or galaxy or some small subset of either?  They are plentiful from the Avengers, to Wonder Woman to the Hulk and that does not even include the various series on television!

We are looking for a hero to take away of our fears.  Having fear is nothing new In our age as we are barraged daily about war,  economic devastation or global destruction.  In past years our concerns revolved mainly about war and natural disasters.  But even then we were seeking heroes to deliver us.  You have probably read how the early Superman comics and the like were attempts by Jewish boys to invent heroes who would deliver us.  At that time the enemy was growing anti-Semitism and the rise of Nazism.  

Before that we had Samson, the hero of our haftarah.

Samson was destined to be a Nazir, an ascetic.  Samson was powerful, endowed with superhuman strength.  He fought off the dreadful and evil Philistines and gave his people hope as he was a one-man army. 

The concept of a Nazir comes from our Torah portion today.  

A Nazir was one who took a personal vow that he would drink no liquor or anything made from grapes; he would refrain from cutting his hair; he would keep far from contact with the dead to maintain his ritual purity and refrain from intimate relations. All this was supposed to elevate the person spiritually from a state doubt to feeling connected to God in a deeply spiritual way.  The Nazir ‘s vows usually lasted a specific span of time. Afterward, he would return back to his normal routine.

During the time of being a Nazir this was to be a time of reflection and devotion.  It would be when he refined his character and felt better about his life and self.

Samson’s exploits are recorded in the Tanakh where he defeats legions of Philistine, battles a lion and unfortunately succumbs to the wiles of Delilah.  I guess being a Nazir with all the rules and regulations was a bit too ambitious for this hero.  In the end he lost his prodigious strength and was captured and killed by the Philistines. 

The Talmud sadly records,” Samson rebelled against God through his eyes, therefore the Philistines put out his eyes.” 

We are in need of heroes; people who will shine and rise as defenders of the weak and needy.  There is so much pain in the world that we sometimes feel like weeping out of futility.  Yet, God did send a hero - one who can deliver us from the machinations of the worst despots and evil-doers.  He sent you.

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D'var Aher

Nasso, the name of this week’s parasha, means “lift up.” Yet it usually is translated as “ to take a count.”  Now that we are immersed in the Book of Numbers it should come as no surprise that translators look to taking an account of the numbers of Jews in the desert when determining the translation of the text.  

In our faith we shy away from counting people. People are not commodities to be tallied and evaluated.  Each person is a self-contained universe of infinite potential value.  Therefore the actual Torah text tells us to “lift up” each Jew.

Our task is to help one another realize our gift. G-d forbid, we should inhibit another person’s growth and potential by ridiculing them, dismissing them as marginal or invisible or engaging in gossip.  Such things can reduce a person to a fraction of what they might become.

We all have been wounded by thoughtless comments or  abuse.  We know the price of that pain.  It diminishes us.

That is why the Torah portion this week  includes a blessing.  It begins with elevating our brothers and sisters and in the midst of mentioning the names of the tribal leaders inserts this stirring blessing:

May G-d bless you and protect you.

May G-d show His countenance to you and be gracious.

May G-d lift up His face to you and grant you peace.

And the best part is that we say this blessing to each other.

  

Bamidbar: Counting on Faith

Numbers.  It sounds like a CPA’s dream.  In Hebrew we call it Bamidbar, which means “wilderness.” The older name for the book is Sefer ha-Pekudim, the Book of Gatherings.” While this new book of the Torah does contain the tallies of Jews in the desert it reaches far more deeply than just a census.

For example. The first born in many families, maybe all, excites the parents.  This introduction of new life is so novel, it borders on the sublime.  God tells each family that they must redeem their first-born. Why?  Precisely because each family pins hopes and aspirations on this child.  Who knows if they will be blessed with another?  Great pains are taken to find just the right name that will help determine the character of the child.  Love is lavished on him.  Blessings are pronounced and his every cry is attended.  

Then God tells us, “He is not yours.”

The family must then redeem the child from God teaching a powerful and profound lesson about ownership and possession.  Such redemption announces that even life is tentative and that we need to be mindful that there is a greater power than us.

To this day we practice Pidyon ha-Ben, the exchange of silver to redeem the first-born.

For example. The Children of Israel must pass through the midbar, a brume of clouds, sun, rocks, sand and scorpions in order to obtain their objective of the Promise Land.  They trekked for forty years through that barren landscape.

Is this not kike our lives? We grow, challenge, make foolish mistakes, pay handsomely for them, and then finally grow to the stature of maturity? It is our own sojourn through a personal wilderness that eventually makes us worthy of entering our promised land. How long did we wander?  Twenty years? Fifty?

For example.  Each family among the numbers was responsible to help transport the Mishkan, Tabernacle, and its various appurtenances. They carried the holiest items where the Jewish people talked to and worshipped God.

How often we become carried away by trivialities!  We lie awake at night worrying over bills.  We stress about our children or parents.  We argue endlessly about the same things day after day, (which is usually about who wields power).  The Torah is gently reminding us that these things should not be the focus of our attention.  There is something far for worthy and meaningful.  Carrying the mishkan or cleaning the shul is far more meaningful and rightly prioritizes life’s demands.

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Davar Acher

The Torah reading for this week, the fourth book of the Bible, contains a census. The details of the parasha are parceled out deliberately as the Torah means to clearly delineate each of the tribes. The tribes are painstakingly separated both in name and in fact. Imagine the twelve tribes sorted out by their relationship to one of the sons of Jacob. Each took their place next to their sisters and brothers and cousins. Then under a specific banner they were singly counted. Every name is mentioned. Then they were supposed to march tribe by tribe into the Promised Land of Canaan.

What was supposed to happen and what actually happened are two different tales. In fact, the Israelites were bothered by their new freedom. Yes, bothered. The change from slave to freeman was too great a transition for them to make. That is why the complaining about water and food and the missing elements from Egypt began almost immediately after liberation. Perhaps the biggest act of rebellion was when the people bought the “lie” of the spies. The quarreling over whatever the issue was not at the heart of the problem. The real problem was a lack of trust.

Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno commented that had the Jews accepted the direction from God; had they believed and maintained their belief in the God that liberated them, fed them, gave them Torah they would have marched right into Israel. The enemies of the land would have scattered at the sight of them carrying their tribal banners. Instead, doomed to wander for a full generation, the Israelites entered Canaan under Joshua in a different fashion.

When the next generation of Israelites crossed into Canaan they were not counted. The names were not specified. Only the heads of the tribes are mentioned in the Book of Joshua. Why the difference? Because, tells Sforno, the Israelites lost something when belief left them. Instead of defining themselves through God, Torah and trust they defined themselves by other external criteria. They worried about the Canaanites. They agonized over food. They argued about water. The identity of the Israelites came from disbelief.

An analogy. When Adam and Havvah met the snake in the Garden, the snake convinced them that the fruit of the forbidden tree was better for them than the other one. They took it. With that act, the two primal beings were sent into exile. Much later, Moshe would confront the nemesis of the Jewish people, Pharaoh, and defy him. Moshe showed the power of God as he exercised control over the serpents of Pharaoh. He grabbed the tail, trusting in God, and the snake became a staff. This act of faith was the beginning off the end of the exile for the Jewish nation.

The snake is an emblem of trust or disbeleief. No wonder later generations conceived of the snake as the yetser hara, the evil side, because it had the power to sway humanity into exile...but it also had the power to redeem it.

We can transform any act into something else with the necessary tool of faith. In fact, the gematria – numeric value – of snake is the same as messiah. In other words, an end to the ultimate exile will be granted when we each take the serpent by its tail - an act of faith.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, the Kotzker Rebbe, was a challenging Hassidic master. The Kotzker demanded an absolute, personal search for truth. Listen to his words:

"If I am me because you are you, and you are you because I am me, then I am not me and you are not you. But if I am me because I am me, and you are you because you are you, then I am me and you are you."

In the final analysis, we must be accountable individually. We are responsible for ourselves. When we have the necessary ingredient of life, faith, God counts us, loves us, and declares, “Now you are a whole person.”




Haftarah Insight:
Hosea does not give up. Faced with a painful life - a woman, his wife, who abandons him and the desolation of having been abandoned for another - Hosea maintains his faith. Despite all she does, Hosea believes in the power of love, return and redemption. In much the same way, Hosea teaches us that God does not give up on us. He still loves, believes in our potential and awaits our return. "You are the children of the Living God!" the prophet proclaims.

A Matter of Law:From this Torah parsha we derive the idea that people are never to be counted. If a census needs to be taken we use the method devised by the Torah itself, we count possessions - shekels here - not souls. The law is extrapolated to even refusing to count the presence of ten for a minyan.

B'hukotai: The Blessing

At the end of every Amida comes the prayer for peace.

The conclusion of the Priestly blessing contains the blessing for peace. Numbers 6:26

Me'am Loez reminds us that the can even erase the holy name of God in order to make peace between a wife and husband.

As the congregation ends it service with the Kaddish Shalem the final phrase is a hope of a universe of peace.

The Sages, of blessed memory, went so far as to note that only one face of the moon can ever be seen from the earth. They pondered why the other side did not reveal itself and reasoned that the unseen side of the moon must be defective, somehow wrong. God went on to create the heavens in such a way as to preserve the dignity of the moon! That is why we are never permitted to see it.

A glowing image of a life imagined is presented in the parasha of B’hukotai. First rain and produce are promised by God. Then comes a harvest of unparalleled proportions. The crops will be so abundant that the seasons of growth will run into one another. “You will eat your bread until you are full and dwell securely in the land.” Dangerous beasts will pose not threat. Warfare will not exist. “And I will give you peace.”

The midrash tells that when Aaron died 80,000 mourners attended his funeral. And every one of them was named Aaron! Aaron, the prince of peace, was vigilant for signs of fracture in a family. When he heard a couple quarreling or found out that a woman and man had grown distant Aaron would approach them. He would find the right words and actions to bring the couple back together. When they reconciled and bore a son they named him after the peace-maker. Devarim rabba, Shoftim

What does this story teach? Peace comes only after the act. Aaron was able to reconcile two people who had come to hate one another after effort. Hand-wringing accomplishes nothing. Talking with others about the problem makes no difference except to bring about more frustration. Only Aaron’s engagement in the world made him an instrument of peace.

The same is true of the Amida. Only after the prayers asking God for wisdom and healing, opening the heart to Jerusalem and the voices of our ancestors, does the word “shalom” enter our prayers and mind. In other words what the Amida is subtly trying to communicate is that peace comes as a result of effort; it is not a reward for simply breathing.

The Kaddish Shalem offers the same moral: ask God, pray for welfare, pour energy and action into making a change and peace is the ultimate reward. Just as the midrash indicates that even the moon’s pride is protected (and we perform the same action when we say the blessing over wine on Shabbat. Remember, we cover the Hallah-bread because we are not supposed to make the berakha of the wine superior, ie. first, to the one over bread) so too we extrapolate the idea of protecting the fragile ego of another person a priority. 'Is it not more important to do so between family members?' asks Aaron.

It is vital to note in this parasha that has so many magnificent blessings in it, nowhere does God promise us peace until we choose to act in concert with Him. The Holy One, blessed be He, tells that He will pour unending blessings on us and all we have to do is sit and “eat our bread until full.”

That does not sound difficult, does it? What is so difficult about being full? Being full means being satisfied. It means sharing our gifts. It means an end to jealousy. When we are full we do not feel an insatiable hunger to get what they have or better. It means that we work to eradicate hatred from our hearts because we are content with the numerous gifts we possess. Being “full” means that we try to share with others the message of reconciliation and hope. “You will eat your bread until you are full” teaches us to work for goodness. Peace will then be ours to hold.




Haftarah Insight:
Jeremiah is the voice of hope. He cries out for his people to listen to the words of Torah. "Take it into your heart!" he begs. "Let your soul's light shine through the veil of indifference!"

A Matter of Law:
"Immerse yourself in the study and practice of Torah."
- Rabbi Yehuda Leib of Prague

B'har: The Shabbats

When God created humanity He tasked us with, “fill the earth and subdue it.”  Simple enough.  All Adam and Eve had to do was procreate and become masters of their earth.  Yet it soon became apparent that humankind’s appetite for control required greater and more specific directives.  

Left to our own irresponsible behaviors we would bring ruin on one another and on the land.  So God directed us to obverse laws that would curtail our destructive tendencies because we could not be trusted to control our lust for power and possessions. So, He told us to observe a once-per-week Shabbat.  Every seven days we are to light candles, bless wine and break bread. On Shabbat, the Holy One told us to live in the world on this Shabbat, not above it.  In that way the earth would reclaim one day for its own healing and we could reclaim the vitality of our lives.

Then God saw fit to add that when people sold themselves into slavery they needed to be set free after six years of labor.  Everyone deserves a new start in the seventh year. 

In B’har, God further expands the rule of seven by indicating the shmittah, a seventh year of Shabbat for the land.

We are just beginning to learn the value of this mitzvah. The body heals when it is given time to rest.  The mind recuperates when given a Shabbat.  Society heals when old debts are forgiven.  And the earth too needs time to recover from the never-ending onslaught of chemicals, depletion and deforestation.

To emphasize the importance of this mitzvah the Torah states that this was a law given at Mt Sinai.

God gave us a gift of a body and universe that self heals. But only if we give it what it needs.

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Davar acher

“Six days you shall work and on the seventh day you shall rest; from plowing and harvesting you shall rest.”

This text, from Exodus 34: 21, tells us to observe the Shabbat and, for some strange reason, chooses to use the example of refraining from planting and reaping on the Shabbat. Why did the Holy Text use this example and not, say, refraining from work? Or not shearing sheep? Or not making fire?

Rashi explains that the Torah uses this specific example because it wants us to be aware that it is speaking of two different sorts of Shabbat. One of them is the seventh day of the week where we are supposed to leave the earth alone and the other is the seventh year when we are told to let the land lie, the Shvi’it year. Both are equally valuable.

So holy is the Shvi’it, explains Rashi, that even the sixth and eighth years are tinged by the holiness of the seventh year. That is, explains the French rabbi, accidental produce that came up on the eighth year of the land is also holy and plowing at the close of the sixth year is forbidden.

The Torah reading of this week, B’har, opens us with God speaking to Moshe at mount Sinai, saying, "Speak to the Children of Israel and tell them: When you come to the land which I am giving to you, the land must keep a Shabbat to God ...". Leviticus 25:1

The concept of a "Shabbat to God" was interpreted with great zeal by our Sages, of blessed memory. They stressed that the observance of the Shvi’it was critical to our well-being. Read their words:

Come and see how difficult the Dust of Shvi’it is: A man who deals in produce of the Shvi’it year will eventually have to sell his chattel ... then his property ... and his house ... eventually his daughter as a handmaid ... he will have to borrow with interest ... and will be forced to sell himself ... to someone who worships idols, which will cause him to do the same. Kiddushin 20a
The phrase, “A Shabbat to God” is stated at the outset of our parsha. The expression can also mean “a return to God." In thinking about the usual Shabbat, the seventh day of the week, our tradition sees this as a day that restores the soul to the body. Shavat va’yinfash states the Ten Commandments instructing us on observing the Shabbat day. On the holy Shabbat our nefesh is given a glimpse of eternity. In that sense, Shabbat is about returning to God. Shavat va’yinafash means that our soul, nefesh, is reawakened and re energized. The day and its observances allow us to be soulfully connected to our Maker.

Shabbat is about reestablishing our relationship with the Almighty. It is a return to God. The Chernobyl Rebbe wrote that the word "Shabbat" -- shin-bet-tav -- stands for "Shabbat Bo Teshuvah" -- in Shabbat there is a return to the Lord.

After seven Shvi’it cycles (7 X 7= 49 years), there is the Jubilee year when land is returned to its original owners and Jewish servants are freed. There are three Shabbats observed by our people; Shabbat, Shvi’it and the Jubilee. Each one contains the nuance of returning back to God. The Sefer HaChinuch tells us this to make us aware that everything belongs to God. We are simply travelers on the earth.

Perhaps there is another lesson here for modernity. Life surges forward with ever-greater velocity. The speed of innovation and the attendant demands on our soul are dizzying.

Who heard of a cordless phone thirty years ago? Who lives without a cell phone today??

I would not advise investing in maps. GPS systems will soon be in every car.

When was the last time you saw a floppy disc drive? Computer technology does not advance, it races.

How long will it be until there are no more gasoline driven cars?

Judaism does not seek to resist or demonize technology. Our task is to harness it, though, and not be harnessed by it.

I cannot help but wonder whether the terrifying curse that is mentioned in the Talmud above may contain kernels of truth. Perhaps we can end up selling all our possessions and ultimately our soul if we are not watchful guardians.

Amalek, the dreadful enemy of the Jews has the same gematria, numerical value, as doubt, safek. In the Talmud, Rabbi Yehuda said in the name of Rav: Had the Jewish people only kept the first Shabbat, no nation or people could ever have had control over them. It says in Torah, "It happened that on the seventh day some of the people went out to collect [manna].” Immediately afterward the Torah reveals, "Amalek came . . ." Shabbat 118b. Amalek was the doubt that God knew what was best for the nation of Israel. Amalek were the lingering and festering thought that perhaps humanity knows better.

Maybe the lessons of the past, the doubts, the idea that somehow we are made of different stuff than all the generations that pack human history, is there to teach us to trust God.

Perhaps that is why when speaking of the seventh and Jubilee years the Torah promises that if we observe these Sabbatical laws " . . . You will dwell securely upon it." Leviticus 25:19 Trust is asked of us. Trust can give us blessing and make us whole.

Emor

                                                    The Law

Torah is a blueprint.  And like all blueprints, it contains only the broad outlines of the building to be erected.  What kind of doors, décor, and ceiling will be determined later.

That same definition applies to our reading this week, Emor.

We will hear, “a wound for a wound, a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye.”  This passage is often understood to mean just what it states. It was never interpreted that way in Judaism.  

A society that carries out such a practice (a similar law can be found in Hammurabi’s code) will be largely toothless and blind.

Our faith system is one that is based on the Oral Law and Written Law.  The latter is the Torah as we read it each week.  The former is an oral tradition that dates back to Mt Sinai.  Handed down from generation to generation it fills in the needed gaps to explain the meaning of the Torah.  Known as the Mishna (literally “that which is repeated”) it is the source for understanding the terse scripture.  

In our passage, the Oral Law understands that a person who has been maliciously wounded requires compensation.  How much should she be compensated?  The court needs to assess the utility and value of the aggrieved.  “An eye for an eye” means the court needs to place a value for the life-long disability of that particular person, shame the person suffers along with medical costs. 

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davar acher                                            


                                         The Way of the Holy

How do we become holy?

There is an avalanche of hundreds of books promising a holy, elevated life cropping up everywhere. People are hungry to learn the path to holiness. Each religious group has its own book and manual to point the way. What is the Jewish response? What is the authentic Jewish way of holiness?

Torah portions in Leviticus are filled with examples of holiness. Emor is no exception. Here are some samples:

-Kohanim must remain holy by conducting the sacrifices in a proper way, not making
intentional scars in their flesh and remaining pure. 21:6
-Those who touched blood, or who are exposed to death, may not come near the
Sanctuary. 22:1-8
-Laws of martyrdom are given to remain holy even in death. 22:32
-Days of meeting God are finely detailed as a means of becoming holy. 23:1
-The Festivals must be remembered and observed. 23:4-44

There are numerous examples of ways in which holiness can be accessed. A single strand of thought runs through them all, intention.

Unlike deep, mysterious and mystical texts, the Torah is deliberate in laying out the foundation of a holy life. Holiness is not, as we might suspect, meditating out in the wilderness or an obscure coded text that needs to be deciphered.

Chaim Vital, Kabbalist of 16th century Safed wrote a small introduction to prayer. “Before one begins one’s prayer, one must say, ‘Behold, I accept upon myself the commandment of you shall love your neighbor like yourself.’”

Holiness begins when we take seriously our relationship to God and world. Reaching out to God through prayer is not abstract; prayer is not a magical incantation. The petitioner does not utter some lofty words in a vacuum. Real prayer does not exist outside of physical action! Our mouth is an echo to the path that our feet tread. Prayer is not entirely in the hands or feet either. The heart, head, mouth and hands have to work together.

Vital teaches that prayers commence with a concrete statement of responsibility towards other people. “Behold, I accept upon myself the commandment…” That is why holy men and women in Judaism do not live in hermitages. Their thoughts have to correlate to their actions; they must translate them into deeds.

That is why a holy life begins with intention. By the way, the word intention in Hebrew translates as kavanah, which we often think of as fervency in prayer. It is not. Kavanah is simply intention. It is will and focus. With a serious attitude that translates into an act, we become holy.

When the kohen refrains from becoming tamey, impure, because that is what God wants, the kohen becomes holy. That is kavanah. When he refuses to mark his flesh as the other peoples do, he stays holy (the modern equivalent would be tattoos. Much in vogue now people see tattoos as marks of beauty.) Yet, Torah deliberately forbids such markings of the flesh. So, in the instance where a person desires to adorn their body with a tattoo but does not because they are following God’s dicta, they are holy. This too, is kavanah. Again, it is doing the Will of the Almighty with a heart that is invested in the work of the hands.

It is not enough to mourn the loss the Jew must also care for the dead. It is not enough to know that lashon ha-ra is evil we must fight against it. While it may be enticing to eat trafe the way of the holy is to refrain from eating forbidden things. Kavanah is the beginning of holiness.

The power of the next Holy Day, Shavuot is remarkable. Ruth, the heroine of the story, is a Moabite. The Moabites were the enemy. First mentioned in Genesis 19: 32-38 the Moabites remained irritants of the Jewish nation for centuries. Numbers 25 specifically regulates the interaction with them. Yet, a member of that tribe, Ruth, not only married a Jewish man but would ultimately bring about the greatest king in the history of Israel, David.

What is the moral of the story? We can become anything, even holy. We can rise above our inclinations. We can overcome our past; we can transcend our baggage. The reason why Ruth is such a powerful book and story is read on the anniversary of the Giving of the Torah is because even this Moabite woman, who had everything against her, came under the wings of God and changed the story of the Jewish people forever.

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Davar Achar

Emor, VaYikra (Leviticus) 21

                                         The Dark Side

Star Wars is big. The next installment comes out in a few weeks. The Web and fans have been flooded by speculation on the movie. Pages of every newspaper and magazine the world over are devoted to it. Some think it will be the best, most profitable film of all time. What makes the Star Wars movies so attractive? Why will millions of people see it? It speaks of the most basic human principles.

All students of Judaism have learned about the Yetsers: the yetser haTov and the Yetser haRa. They are two opposing forces that exist in all. The Yetser haTov is the urge to do good. It is the part of us, which beckons to do mitzvot, and acts of Hesed. The Yetser haTov is what makes someone you do not know suddenly come to your defense as the playground bully pushes you around or the office nasty puts out more venom. It is what makes us do things that may not help us but definitely are good for someone else.

  >Idea: Think of someone who once helped you.
What does this make you feel now?

Now the Yetser HaRa, on the other hand, is the oppositional force. It is like an animal that wants to run wild and knows no boundary. We have all had experience with this one. It screams uncontrollably. It hurts. And wants revenge. The Yetser HaRa tramples on feelings. It’s in them and us.

The Yetser HaTov and HaRa are opposing forces. They vie for domination. Here comes the Star Wars part. Both the Dark Side and the Force are the Yetsers in us. They are potential. While each of us is born with them in us, we are called upon to bring them out. More importantly, we must recognize their existence.

There are things in this world that do not belong to us. That does not mean that we cannot own them, but we are not supposed to have them. HaShem asks us to keep separate good and evil, light and dark. Like in Star Wars, both are powerful forces. Yet one is good, the other evil. Our job is to recognize that they are distinct.

These are some of the other radical differences in the world wih which this Sidra is concerned. For example.
A kohen must be distant from contamination
>What is contamination? Why is important for a kohen to be separate from
contamination?
Lesson? Don’t confuse holy with things un-holy.
For example.
A person with tzaarat (a disease) must be kept separate from the community.
Lesson? Things must be kept apart. Healthy and unhealthy.

It is important to keep things separate, which are opposites. Otherwise we might not know the difference between good and evil. And, as we all learned from the Shoah, that is when terrible things occur.